Toyama City - Pioneer of the Japan Sea Rim Exchange and Environmental Hub - Perspectives from 2002

Toyama City - Pioneer of the Japan Sea Rim Exchange and Environmental Hub - Perspectives from 2002

In 2002, Toyama City was one of the first regional cities in Japan to put forward an urban strategy that combined "environment" and "international exchange". The first reason behind this is the aluminum industry as an industrial base. Toyama Prefecture had the largest share of aluminum smelting and processing in Japan, and had great potential for developing a "venous industry" that utilized recycled resources and energy-saving technology. In addition, as one of the leading hub ports on the Sea of Japan side, Toyama Port had developed container shipping routes with Russia, Korea, China, and other countries in Northeast Asia, and was a stage for environmental cooperation as well as economic exchange.

At the same time, it was decided that the headquarters of the Northwest Pacific Regional Action Plan (NOWPAP), an initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), would be established in Toyama City. This is an international organization that promotes marine environmental conservation in the countries along the Japan Sea coast, and it was a great opportunity for Toyama City to become a center of international environmental policy. The Eco-Town project was also underway, and the accumulation of industrial waste recycling and resource recovery technologies, as well as the expansion of human exchange, would spill over from the local community to the international community.

In April 2001, the city obtained ISO 14001 certification, and the introduction of an environmental management system at the municipal level was also groundbreaking. At the time, the Basic Law for Establishing a Recycling-based Society (enacted in 2000) and the Basic Environmental Plan were being reviewed in Japan as a whole, and there was growing momentum for local governments to create an advanced environmental model. Even during the economic stagnation that followed the bursting of the bubble economy, Toyama City sought to make its presence felt both domestically and internationally by positioning environmental policy at the core of its regional development efforts.

This trend symbolized the way Japanese regional cities were seeking a path of revitalization by combining "industry," "environment," and "international exchange" at the beginning of the 21st century, and Toyama City was attracting attention as one of the pioneers of this trend.